Immortal Sea (7 page)

Morgan stood with his back to the wall of Antonia’s Ristorante, as aloof from the action around him as the cat drowsing in the restaurant window. Eating, chattering humans, all ages, both sexes, every size, filled the vinyl booths. Spires of pink, white, and purple flowers decorated the tables. Sunlight streamed through the red awning outside, suffusing the air with a rosy glow. The sound of laughter and conversation mingled with the aromas of red sauce and freshly baked bread. Noise, smells, and colors blurred together in his head, almost drowning out the persistent song of the sea and the lingering pulse of sexual arousal quickened by the woman in the car.

Her eyes were wide, deep brown, with shadows swaying in their depths. For a moment, falling into those eyes, he had wanted to breathe her, bite her, fuck her. Memory stirred, elusive as the night
or the scent of bruised grass as she cried and clawed and came under him, again and again
.

“I know you
.
”

Her gaze had iced over before she turned away.
“No, you don’t
.
”

He pressed his shoulders into the wall, absorbing the solid support of the plaster at his back. He did not trust his memories. His normally sharp mind was blurred with exhaustion, his head filled with the shifting world beneath the waves.

But he trusted his instincts. His gut recognized his kind. That boy . . .

His suspicions stirred and circled, mouthing over possibilities, drawn like sharks to the scent of blood.

“Cake?”

A skinny, dark-eyed boy thrust a plate under his nose.

Morgan almost recoiled. He eyed the pink and white confection cautiously. Perhaps he should eat. Food would anchor his body, would ground him in the here-and-now. He had not paused to hunt on the long sea crossing. His stretched, depleted body required nourishment now.

He took the plate. “Thank you.”

On the other side of the room, Conn and his consort stood with her brothers and their families. Morgan’s lips flattened. There was something he never thought to see, four selkies fussing over a human baby.

Bleakness settled in his bones, deeper than cold, sharper than hunger.

The world, his world, was changing around him, the ice caps melting, the oceans warming, the finfolk fading forever beneath the wave. He had pledged himself and his people to the selkie lord, convinced they must unite to survive. But now the selkie were allying with humans, breeding with humans, becoming more human in every way.

How could the children of the sea possibly survive that?

“Nick, your mother wants you for pictures.” Margred stood before him, full and radiant as the moon.

“Okay.” The boy darted off, threading his way through the crowded tables.

Morgan realized he was still holding a plate and set it down. “Margred. You look . . .”

Pregnant
, was all he could think. With a human’s child. Margred had chosen to forsake her nature and abandon her people for the privilege of rutting with one man.

He felt an ache like an old wound in bitter weather. His sister, his twin, had chosen the same. He had never forgiven her.

Margred’s lips curved. “Round?” she suggested.

“Well,” Morgan concluded. “You look very well.”

Her gaze wandered over him, frank, female, assessing. “I wish I could say the same of you.”

He bared his teeth in a shark’s smile. “I will survive.”

“No doubt.” She touched the sleeve of the man beside her. “My husband, Caleb.”

Lucy and Dylan’s brother, Morgan remembered, the human son of the sea witch Atargatis.

The man stuck out his hand, human fashion. Morgan steeled himself to accept his touch.

Caleb’s grip was firm, his gaze sharp and steady. “Will you be here long?”

“No longer than I must.”

“Caleb is the island’s police chief,” Margred said.

Ah. That accounted for the warrior’s eyes, the interest disguised as courtesy.

“You didn’t come for the christening,” Caleb said. “You want to see Conn.”

“Yes,” Morgan admitted shortly. How much did he know of their affairs?

Caleb nodded once and then jerked his head toward the swinging kitchen door at the back of the dining room. “I’ll let him know. Give me five minutes. I’ll have him meet you out back.”

Morgan stiffened. He was not a servant to be ordered about or a rat to scurry through kitchens and skulk in alleys. But pride must bow to expedience.

“Five minutes,” he said and left.

The alley behind the restaurant was sharp with shadows and broken glass. A whiff of clamshells and lobster carcasses carried from a hulking iron bin across the graveled strip. Scoured into the corner of the building, incongruous against the bricks and mortar, was a warden’s mark: three interconnected spirals representing the domains of earth, sea, and sky.

Dylan’s work, Morgan assumed.

He wore the same sign on a chain around his neck, the symbol of his power and his pledge, binding him to the service of the sea king’s son.

“I smell rotting fish.” Conn’s deep voice carried a hint of humor. “If crossing the sea affects you so, you should have stayed on Sanctuary.”

Morgan turned. The selkie prince regarded him from the shadow of the kitchen doorway, a tall man with eyes the color of rain.

Morgan was in no mood for joking. “Your concern overwhelms me, lord. Or it would, had it moved you to remain on Sanctuary.”

“I promised Lucy we would visit her family when her brother’s child was born.”

“And your consort’s whims take precedence over all other claims to your attention.”

The prince’s gaze cooled to frost. “Have a care, Morgan. Lucy is the
targair inghean.
”

The
targair inghean
, the daughter of the prophecy. She might yet prove to be the salvation of the sea folk—or she might be the biggest mistake Conn had ever made.

“No one doubts your consort’s powers, lord. Only her priorities.” He was too tired to be subtle, too frustrated to guard his tongue or weigh his words. “This is not the first time she has put her ties to her family above her duty to our people.”

“Her people, too.”

“Then let her act to save them,” Morgan snapped. “Before there is nothing left to save. The children of the sea are being lost, our people disappearing beneath the wave, our pure blood being diluted by this flood of humankind. We need her on Sanctuary. We need you both on Sanctuary.”

“I left you in charge.”

“You left Griff in charge.” Another slight, another sting.

“He is warden of Caer Subai,” Conn pointed out with cool logic. “But you were in command of the work party.”

“ ‘In command.’ ” Failure was bitter as brine in his mouth. “Tell me to command the sea foam or issue orders to mackerel. I’d have better luck.”

Conn’s brows raised. “They do not obey you.”

“They
obey,
” Morgan said savagely. He could enforce obedience. “They do not
stay.
We are not day laborers. We are the children of the sea. We flow as the sea flows. I cannot explain to them, I cannot inspire them, to break their hands and their hearts hauling stone. Day after day, they are confined to one place, one task, and each other’s company. And every night more slip away to sea.”

“You cannot fault them for that. Not if they come back.”

“Most come back,” Morgan said. “Most of the time. The greatest loss is among the finfolk. We are not anchored to the land as selkies are.”

The finfolk had no sealskins. They were true shape-shifters, able to take the form of any creature of the sea. But their fluid nature made them even more susceptible to the pull of the deep.

“I do not have the patience—Griff does not have the power—to hold them,” Morgan confessed.

Conn drew a breath and loosed it. In his eyes, Morgan saw the burden of his kingship. Morgan had been trapped for months on Sanctuary. The selkie prince had ruled alone from his tower for nine centuries.

Alone, until Lucy.

“Then we will return,” Conn said quietly.

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

Morgan bowed his head, hiding his exhaustion. “I will be ready.”

“You do not come with us.”

The simple command shook Morgan to a rare apology. “My lord, if I spoke out of turn . . .”

Conn sighed. “You spoke the truth. But you are in no shape to face another crossing so soon. You need time to recover.”

“I am well enough.”

“We cannot afford to lose another of your line.”

Morgan’s body went rigid. His temples throbbed. He did not need the selkie prince to remind him he was the last blood born of his kind.

Unbidden, the boy popped back into his head, the sullen mouth, the glinting eyes.

Morgan opened his mouth. Shut it. His suspicions were too new to voice to Conn, his ambition too raw, his hope too fragile.

He cleared his throat. “It might do me good to stay.”

Conn nodded in apparent approval. “Take as long as you need. There is magic on this island, in the place and in the people. You should get to know them, Morgan. As much as you dismiss them, our future is linked with theirs.”

“Yes,” Morgan said slowly. He thought again of the boy on the sidewalk. He remembered the woman in the car with the pale face and fierce voice.

I know you,
he thought.

“Perhaps you are right,” he said.

MORGAN SLIPPED FROM THE SUN-DAPPLED ROAD into the parking lot, avoiding the clinic’s front entrance. The morning mist had burned away, leaving the air as bright and cool as crystal. Here he could not rely on vibrations in the water or the plumes of scent that trailed his prey. But his hunting instincts were the same on land or in the sea.

Find a base of operations.

Focus on a single target.

Observe from a distance.

And when the victim was vulnerable, strike.

The dark blue vehicle sat in the shade behind the building. Locked. Morgan considered the sealed windows, the crumpled yellow box with its protruding plastic straw on the floor of the back seat. He glanced toward the quiet street.

He might have enlisted Dylan in his search. But he disdained to ask the younger warden’s help, especially for what might be a fool’s errand.

Besides, he hunted alone.

He had located her vehicle. Now he must find her.

He selected a heavy rock from the line edging the parking lot and smashed it into the left rear window. Glass cracked and gave, a white spiderweb fracture spreading from the point of impact. A horn blared. Blared. Again.

Carefully, Morgan replaced the rock in the stone border. Dusting his hands, he walked around the building and through the steel and glass doors.

A human stench compounded of age and disease, blood and antiseptic, rose from the carpet and slapped him like a rogue wave. He froze. He had not considered his quarry could be sick. The thought caused an unexpected quiver in his belly.

His gaze passed over the rows of chairs, an old man with wrinkled hands and thick spectacles, a young woman with a child on the floor and another in her lap.

His mouth compressed. He did not see
her
. The woman in the car. The one he was searching for.

He approached the counter, where a female in soft, pink, shapeless clothes with a soft, pink, shapeless face peered at a screen. “Pardon me.”

She glanced up, her eyes widening. Her color deepened. He stood patiently, well aware of his effect on her sex and willing to let it work for him.

“I, um. Can I help you?”

“Yes, I am looking for the owner of a dark blue vehicle parked behind this building.”

Her face creased. “A dark blue . . . The Honda? Why?”

“The window is broken,” he explained smoothly. “I noticed it as I walked by.”

“Oh, dear.” The faint suspicion vanished. Her frown cleared. “I’ll let Liz know.”